Touring Shanghai - Part 2

I forgot to mention that at Yu Yuan, apart from the beautiful tea house in the middle of the pond, is the most famous dumpling shop in Shanghai. For the dumplings from the window, there is a line, at any given time, about 50 people deep. In the sweltering heat it is the last thing you want to do, so we went inside to sit down and eat them. The second floor was too crowded, so we kept climbing to the third floor. There was a room we could have gone into that required a 60 rmb minimum per person, or we waited about 10 minutes for the 20 rmb per person minimum. I think the second floor may not have had any minimum. It was a great experience, very good dumplings, although we are reserving our judgment about the best dumplings in all of Asia, which is the billing it gives itself.

We taxied across town to the largest temple in Shanghai, the Jade Buddha Temple. This was one of the doors that are now closed to entry, but beautiful.


A wall that was opposite the temple. So beautiful I had to grab a shot.
One of the many Buddhas inside the temple. This is the traditional happy buddha. There were worshippers around who had incense and were bowing and praying to each statue. There were walls filled with all kinds of gorgeous sculptures: wood, bronze, painted.
One of the temple courtyards. There is carving on the top of the roof that is a little tricky to see in the photo.
Each figure has a special power they represent, so prayers are given to many different figures for each specific reason.



















This is one piece of wood. Money is put everywhere on the sculpture. In the larger statues which are behind glass, money has been thrown in over the top.

























The actual Jade Buddha was in its own air-conditioned interior room. We paid well at the entrance of the temple, and then had to pay extra to see the jade buddha. It is beautiful and translucent. Photographs were not allowed. One large piece of perfect jade that was carved. There is also a reclining jade buddha in another room. Of course, even though there are monks everywhere in this still functioning temple, there were also shops throughout where you could buy all kinds of buddhas, jade, fans, scrolls. One amazing craft was the paper cutting. Intricate designs cut from paper.

Our next stop was a local antique street. Local meaning westerners were not to be found around. It is a pedestrian street with galleries, scultpures on the street, and various "antique" shops. These antique shops have a lot of reproductions, some good some not, and a few actual antiques. We found a store we loved and spent a lot of time looking in there. The street was once inhabited by authors, artists. A great find.

Our tour guide, Sissy, then took us to what she called the flower and bird market. The only real bust of the day. She thought it was going to be fabulous. This is where culture steps in. Our western expectations of a flower and bird market were a bit different than what we found. We first walked through pedestrian streets full of 2 yuan stores. Plastic junk in my mind. (Heaven for the girls, who were spending their own yuan!) There is a pond that you walk by. It is lively at night with street vendors coming out and people just hanging. Our age is showing. It is a young peoples hang out. We did find some good paper goods stores for school and office supplies. We finally made our way to the back and a tin roof covered area filled with some plants, not many flowers, and shop upon shop of caged crickets, mice, guinea pigs, some cats and puppies, lots of fish. It was not a charming market. It was dirty, we were getting bitten left and right. We got our of there as quickly as possible. I don't believe we saw one bird. I am sure we will find the real thing elsewhere.

All in all it was a great day. This is a great city.

M